Starting from the destruction of the Land of Light

Inside the operations room at the Earth Defense Force headquarters, it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

On the huge main screen, a live feed clearly showed Zhang Chen, Chu Huai, and Chen Mo sitting in the shadows on the dimly lit sidewalk.

The three people's conversation was clearly and synchronously transmitted back to the operations room through the miniature earpiece worn by Chen Mo.

When Zhang Chen's words, "Have you heard of—ancient civilization?" echoed in the silent operations room, the expressions on the faces of all the team members sitting around the screen froze instantly, replaced by an uneasy sense of doubt.

"Ancient civilization?" Tang Yu repeated subconsciously, her brows furrowed. "This term... I've never heard of it before."

"It doesn't sound like anything good," Yang Tianyu said softly, his eyes filled with wariness.

Despite being baseless, the ancient and unknown nature of the word itself, combined with Zhang Chen's mysterious identity and style of doing things, was enough to make everyone instinctively feel a chill.

"Team member Tang Yu!" Yan Su immediately turned around. "Immediately search the database for all information related to the 'Ancient Civilization,' quick!"

"Understood." Tang Yu's fingers had already blurred across the virtual keyboard in front of him.

Her expression was more solemn than ever before, her eyes fixed on the rapidly scrolling data stream on the screen in front of her.

"Searching for the keyword 'ancient civilization,' very few results found!"

The items that pop up on the screen are few and far between, mostly vague and old archaeological speculation reports, or unverified fragments mentioned during geological exploration in some extremely remote and harsh environments.

There are no systematic records with substantial evidence in the entire Earth Defense Force's internal database.

"The records in the database are very scattered, almost entirely speculative and unverified legends," Tang Yu reported rapidly. "There's no record of anything ever existing on Earth, or..."

Suddenly! Her voice froze, her eyes fixed on an extremely inconspicuous sub-entry that popped up in the corner of the screen.

"Wait! This is..."

Tang Yu leaned forward abruptly, getting closer to the display screen in front of him. "There are a few very brief mission reports. They're not research or speculation; they're... they're operation logs!"

Everyone in the operations room turned their heads sharply, their eyes fixed on Tang Yu.

"What operation?"

"The records show that this unnamed team was assigned to a top-secret mission codenamed 'Project F' at different times!" Tang Yu's brows furrowed deeply. "The mission objective was to find the ruins or remains of a suspected extinct 'ancient civilization,' and... and... the records were intentionally erased?"

Upon hearing this, Yan Su's expression completely changed.

This is definitely not ordinary academic research. The Earth Defense Force actually secretly dispatched a task force to search for the ruins of a legendary civilization? Most importantly, they were completely unaware of this!

Even before this, they had no idea that there was an unknown ancient civilization on Earth!

Meanwhile, another secret team within the Earth Defense Force has already begun to openly conduct research and exploration in this area!

"What about the most recent records?" Yan Su stood up and walked behind Tang Yu. "When was the most recent F-Project mission? Who was in charge of this project?"

Tang Yu's fingers tapped faster on the keyboard, trying to retrieve detailed files.

However, the next second, her movements suddenly froze.

Just as the access interface on the screen was about to open the latest F-Plan mission file, a glaring red warning box suddenly popped up!

[WARNING: Insufficient access permissions!]

The access request has been logged and rejected!

"This..." Tang Yu suddenly raised her head and looked at Yan Su, her voice hoarse with extreme shock and confusion. "Captain Yan, the recent... the recent operation records are locked. I don't have the necessary permissions."

Yan Su also saw the red warning box. Unlike Tang Yu, his brows furrowed deeply, and he was considering things more than anyone else present.

Unlike others, Yan Su, as a veteran, was very clear about the authority system of the global defense force.

Previously, as the deputy captain of the combat unit, his authority was Level A, which was one of the highest levels of operational command. Now, as the captain, Tang Yu, as the leader of the technical support group, has the same level of authority as him in terms of accessing data archives, or even slightly higher authority in some special areas.

In theory, Tang Yu should be able to access 99.99% of the files in the defense force's database.

If even Tang Yu doesn't have the authority to access the files, then perhaps only one person does.

It's even possible that this file belongs to that very person...

"That's right."

The door to the operations room suddenly opened, and everyone turned to look.

Then, Commander-in-Chief Longtian strode in with an unpredictable expression.

He first glanced at Zhang Chen on the big screen, then looked around and sighed softly.

"...I ordered the sealing of records of the ancient civilization."

"Commander-in-Chief."

"Commander-in-Chief..."

Upon seeing Longtian, everyone instinctively stood up.

Yan Su thought to himself, "As expected," but he didn't ask any further questions. After all, there must be a reason why the higher-ups wanted to cover up these things, and he wasn't qualified to know about them, so he wasn't qualified to ask.

But what he was most curious about was, if Zhang Chen wasn't lying, then why would the Pedan aliens infiltrate the Earth Defense Force to search for records about the ancient civilization? Wasn't their goal to hunt down the human hosts of Ultraman Aegis and Ultraman Phyllis?

Just then, Zhang Chen's voice came back into the operations room through the headset.

"Ancient civilization, a civilization that was destroyed on Earth 30 million years ago. Their technology was far superior to that of Earth today, but they were still wiped out, or you could say they were swallowed by darkness."

"Swallowed by darkness..." Chu Huai opened his mouth, and suddenly felt a bitter taste on his tongue.

In a sense, what is the difference between ancient civilizations and the Earth today?

Countless monsters are ravaging the Earth, and countless dark forces are eyeing it from the universe. Without the protection of the Land of Light, the Earth is now in danger of being swallowed by darkness at any moment.

"As you have seen, first Golza, then Garula, the reappearance of these ancient monsters on Earth is a sign, a sign of the revival of an ancient civilization."

Chu Huai reacted quickly. "You mean, there's an unknown, advanced civilization hidden beneath Earth, and they're going to revive and try to destroy the current Earth to recreate an ancient civilization?"

"You've misunderstood a bit, but that's roughly the idea." Zhang Chen casually tossed the finished marshmallow stick into the trash can and continued.

"The resurgence of the ancient civilization does not refer to those ancient people, but rather to the resurgence of the being that destroyed the ancient civilization. There is evidence that the darkness that destroyed the ancient civilization was not killed, but sealed on Earth, and the seal has been gradually loosening over time."

Hearing Zhang Chen's words, Chu Huai immediately felt the pressure on his back become even heavier, and even breathing became somewhat difficult.

Is the being that destroyed Earth's ancient civilization truly the enemy he can face now?

"Why should we believe you?" Chen Mo said quietly. "Based on the few documents you've produced, we've never heard of any ancient civilization. This is very likely something you've made up to deceive us and divert our attention."

"You can think that way, but what good would it do me?" Zhang Chen's expression remained unchanged. "Besides, aren't you curious about Bogaru and the Pedan aliens' true purpose?"

"What are their...real motives?"

"yes."

Zhang Chen smiled slightly, his gaze fixed meaningfully on Chen Mo's glasses.

A small camera was working on the temple of Zhang Chen's glasses, and his gaze seemed to be looking through the lens at the people in the operations room.

Looking at Zhang Chen's eyes, which held a peculiar meaning, Commander-in-Chief Long Tian's eyelids twitched involuntarily.

Immediately afterwards, they heard Zhang Chen speak slowly.

"Which Ultraman from the Land of Light is more appealing than Ultraman from Earth?"

...